'Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence' shows managers and students the importance of empowerment as part of human resource strategy. It provides a critical perspective of this established vital management technique, identifying factors that will lead to a win: win situation for all concerned. When successfully incorporated as part of HR strategy, empowerment can: * enable organizations to gain commercial and competitive advantage * become more flexible * improve employee commitment * use the skills of individual employees to best advantage and enhance personal capabilities. 'Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence' uses case studies from companies such as McDonalds, TGI Fridays and Harvester Restaurants to build a picture of empowerment of service employees in context, illustrating how different forms of empowerment are employed and different working arrangements are practiced.

'Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence' shows managers and students the importance of empowerment as part of human resource strategy. It provides a critical perspective of this established vital management technique, identifying factors that will lead to a win: win situation for all concerned. When successfully incorporated as part of HR strategy, empowerment can: * enable organizations to gain commercial and competitive advantage * become more flexible * improve employee commitment * use the skills of individual employees to best advantage and enhance personal capabilities. 'Empowerment: HR strategies for service excellence' uses case studies from companies such as McDonalds, TGI Fridays and Harvester Restaurants to build a picture of empowerment of service employees in context, illustrating how different forms of empowerment are employed and different working arrangements are practiced.

The complexities of employee empowerment have been largely underestimated and it is clear that organisations struggle with putting the concept into practice. Rozana Ahmad Huq recognises that effective utilisation of human resources is a strategic issue for organisations. Hierarchical organisations struggle to survive. The growing trend for downsizing and merging of organisations means that they can no longer maintain the 'command and control' approach and employees are given more responsibility and expected to take decisions. However, simply burdening employees with extra responsibility without empowering them does not deliver results. Drawing on her own research in organisations, Dr Huq investigates the concept of empowerment in a new way that combines themes from the disciplines of management and social work, the latter being a domain where empowerment is an important construct. This helps to bridge the gaps in knowledge in the management domain and draws attention to the positive and negative psychological implications for employees of the practice of empowerment that are often ignored by leaders and managers. Ultimately, the author offers a 'practice model' to help people in management and non-management understand the new roles and behaviours that they need to adopt if empowerment is to become a reality. This book is a resource for any business or other organisation genuinely interested in employee empowerment and for those with a responsibility for teaching about it.

The Encyclopedia of Services is a ground-breaking resource that offers a unique overview of what constitutes the main source of wealth and employment in our contemporary economies, namely services. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Society, globally, has entered into what might be called the “service economy.” Services now constitute the largest share of GDP in most countries and provide the major source of employment in both developed and developing countries. Services permeate all aspects of peoples’ lives and are becoming inseparable from most aspects of economic activity. “Quality management” has been a dominating managerial practice since World War II. With quality management initially associated with manufacturing industries, one might assume the relevance of quality management might decrease with the emergence of the service economy. To the contrary, the emergence of the service economy strengthened the importance of quality issues, which no longer are associated only with manufacturing industries but are increasingly applied in all service sectors, as well. Today, we talk not only about product or service quality but have even expanded the framework of quality to quality of life and quality of environment. Thus, quality and services have emerged in parallel as closely interrelated fields. The Encyclopedia of Quality and the Service Economy explores such relevant questions as: What are the characteristics, nature, and definitions of quality and services? How do we define quality of products, quality of services, or quality of life? How are services distinguished from goods? How do we measure various aspects of quality and services? How can products and service quality be managed most effectively and efficiently? What is the role of customers in creation of values? These questions and more are explored within the pages of this two-volume, A-to-Z reference work.

Employee empowerment is thought to be both a solution to the problems associated with outdated 'command and control' workplaces and a way to stimulate creativity and innovation in organizations. Valuing people's dignity is at the heart of Dr. Huq's work and this led to her interest in conducting in-depth research into both the academic understanding of employee empowerment and what happens in practice. Divided into clearly defined sections are: a clear navigation of the management literature and explanation of the controversies surrounding employee empowerment.the key concepts that must be addressed and where the problems in interpretation arise.two live case studies (one large organisation with over 2000 employees and one small with 54 employees). an outline of the research methodology and sample questions. direct feedback from boardroom members to frontline operatives about their experiences of empowerment, revealing the pitfalls that may be common to many organisations.an overview of the findings with suggestions on what needs to be considered before implementing an employee empowerment programme. extensive bibliography providing an excellent reference resource. Referring also to the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) and guidelines given by European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), this neat little book is a valuable resource, not only to researchers and academics, but also to practitioners in large and small organisations who are considering an empowerment programme or who want to understand and improve their current policies. Employee empowerment is thought to be both a solution to the problems associated with outdated 'command and control' workplaces and a way to stimulate creativity and innovation in organizations. Valuing people's dignity is at the heart of Dr. Huq's work and this led to her interest in conducting in-depth research into both the academic understanding of employee empowerment and what happens in practice. Divided into clearly defined sections are: a clear navigation of the management literature and explanation of the controversies surrounding employee empowerment.the key concepts that must be addressed and where the problems in interpretation arise.two live case studies (one large organisation with over 2000 employees and one small with 54 employees). an outline of the research methodology and sample questions. direct feedback from boardroom members to frontline operatives about their experiences of empowerment, revealing the pitfalls that may be common to many organisations.an overview of the findings with suggestions on what needs to be considered before implementing an employee empowerment programme. extensive bibliography providing an excellent reference resource. Referring also to the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) and guidelines given by European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), this neat little book is a valuable resource, not only to researchers and academics, but also to practitioners in large and small organisations who are considering an empowerment programme or who want to understand and improve their current policies. Employee empowerment is thought to be both a solution to the problems associated with outdated 'command and control' workplaces and a way to stimulate creativity and innovation in organizations. Valuing people's dignity is at the heart of Dr. Huq's work and this led to her interest in conducting in-depth research into both the academic understanding of employee empowerment and what happens in practice. Divided into clearly defined sections are: a clear navigation of the management literature and explanation of the controversies surrounding employee empowerment.the key concepts that must be addressed and where the problems in interpretation arise.two live case studies (one large organisation with over 2000 employees and one small with 54 employees). an outline of the research methodology and sample questions. direct feedback from boardroom members to frontline operatives about their experiences of empowerment, revealing the pitfalls that may be common to many organisations.an overview of the findings with suggestions on what needs to be considered before implementing an employee empowerment programme. extensive bibliography providing an excellent reference resource. Referring also to the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) and guidelines given by European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), this neat little book is a valuable resource, not only to researchers and academics, but also to practitioners in large and small organisations who are considering an empowerment programme or who want to understand and improve their current policies.